End Time (65 page)

After taking Mr. Washington's pulse and temperature, Cheryl began to suspect the poor man was just worn out from work in a psychiatric hospital. He rubbed his belly. “Feels better. Thanks. Sure hope those two boys in the kitchen know how to cook.”

Billy and Guy had returned to the gabled house lugging cartons boosted from the cafeteria food locker. Cheryl raised an eyebrow when she entered the kitchen, noticing the sparkle on the kitchen table—a gold wedding band and an engagement ring with a stone the size of a cherry pit. Involuntarily, she glanced at the much less ostentatious gold band on her own finger. Instinctually, she touched it; all this time, still on her finger. Never taken it off … Had Rachel noticed?

“Yeah, somebody left those in the food locker,” Billy said about the rings.

“We found part of the gal they belonged to.” Big Bea sagged to a kitchen chair and rubbed her thigh. “But we didn't look for the rest of her and I damn well need a drink to tell you about it.”

Beatrice tossed her cars keys to Cheryl. “Would you be so good, Gorgeous? My leg is singing
Die Walküre
.” Cheryl returned to the kitchen thirty seconds later with a bottle of Jim Beam from the Gran Torino's trunk and a very worried look on her face.

“We got company.”

 

37

Pudknockers

Mr. P., the three youngsters, and one dead Punjabi scientist cooled their heels in the plush Gulfstream jet. Safely parked in a LaGuardia airport hangar, they could watch the snow fall outside through the jet windows. Night had come. A whole day lost, and the Pied Piper was ready to lose his cool along with it.

Ever since the gaunt man found his kiddies in Tesla's old hotel room, it had been three steps forward, two steps back, with Bhakti Singh's hopeless ghost dogging them every step of the way. The peckerhead now stood as he had in Room 3327, arms at his sides, his wrath smoldering below the surface of his phantom skin.

What an annoyance.

The Light Tesla had come right into the Gulfstream cabin as well, the “electrician” floating around like a firefly. The faint glow ball hovered about the cabin, taunting Mr. P., as if the tall man didn't already know who was behind Bhakti's pathetic efforts to alter the preordained.

Sure, dead Bhakti had sneaked the brats out of the San Remo on the prompting of the “electrician.” But the Light Tesla was a little instigator, feeding the dead scientist all manner of false hope. That he could actually rescue the youngsters, that his special hotel room would protect them, that a man in Sioux Falls could prevent the inevitable by trying to scramble the digital innards of Pi R Squared.

Pure childishness.

Mr. P. fixed his attention on the uninvited ghost of Bhakti.

The Punjabi scientist glared silently, as though hoping to burn holes in Piper's head with his brown cow eyes.

“Y'know,” the gaunt man told him, “I could put this neurotic remnant of your mind back in that drained corpse of yours and keep it there forever. Should I have your molecules rearranged? You'd be staring out of dead shrunken eyes and never be able to escape. I'd keep you conscious in your coffin even as your mortal coil unwound, as your stinky flesh decayed. You wouldn't be the first I've put asunder since you knuckle scrapers walked the Earth. Wouldn't be the millionth.”

Mr. P. paused. The specter said nothing in reply, simply kept staring with those terrible eyes. The Piper couldn't help trying to enlighten him.

“You think
He's
going to save you? Forget about it. The Big Kahuna doesn't interfere too much with us as long as we don't interfere too much with him. That's why things are such a friggin' mess down here. If you blow yourselves up, we'll go to another blue planet, go somewhere else to play. Your little glow ball friend too. There's plenty of room out there for the likes of us. And you can wander the stone halls of Elsinore Castle moaning till kingdom come for all I care.”

The gaunt man left off; no point in educating a dead man. And Mr. P. knew all about the Light Tesla.… The dancing golden glow was a survivor of the silver-and-glass cities, like himself. A Magellan star surfer, like himself, another Long Soul, merely one of Lattimore's Takers. But this one chose to do good over the years—a little help for humanity here, a little help there. Instead of mastering a skill set of terror and intimidation, command and control, the Light Tesla had used his powers over eons for reflection and meditation, his innate benevolence stripping him of useful talents.

At last no longer able to buy friends or influence people, leaving such practical matters to the likes of Piper, the Long Soul had steadily retreated beyond the mortal world to pure energy, his original form. As it told the crazy lady,
Once I walked among men; once I had a name.
And before that? One of the galaxy's immortal fireflies. All in all, the dead “electrician” had become an interfering, very old, busybody. Bottom line, the dim bulb that once lived as Tesla for a while—just as Mr. P. inhabited this sack of skin—was in no position to do much for anybody, living or dead. And neither
ahem,
was “God.”

In any case, none of this brought the kids any closer to the underground facility in Ohio. From the moment they reached the jet in LaGuardia airport, matters conspired to delay their departure. Since they were inside an empty hangar, it was not necessary to deice the wings, but they needed to find at least one pilot and a couple of thousand gallons of Jet B fuel. LaGuardia Tower was still on the air, but everyone up there sounded drunk. A few months ago, Mr. P. had made serious weather over Utah so a little twerp could retrieve a pinch of comet dust, but
now
he couldn't clear a patch of clouds just to get a plane off the ground. Thinking positive thoughts about blue skies on summer days wasn't working. Maybe all the mayhem, whoopee cushions, and hysterical blindness had worn him out.

And it continued to snow. The Pied Piper clenched his jaw.

Another newcomer had arrived—this one living. A disheveled fellow in an airline pilot's uniform stumbled through the Gulfstream's hatch, their airbus driver, half in the bag. He wore gold on his jacket epaulettes and scrambled eggs on his cap, but his tie was askew and his face pink and sweaty. A couple of days away from a shave, it looked like the man had been sitting in one of the airport bars eating plastic sandwiches and knocking 'em back for a week.

“The soldier outside said you needed an air taxi driver?” the man in the pilot's blues said. “You wanna go to Ohio? I'll go to Ohio. Gotta be better than this stinking dump.”

“That's correct,” the Piper informed him. “We have to arrange for fuel, a plow, and perhaps a tow out to the runway. So you'll have plenty of time to settle in.”

The pilot thought about that for a moment, then nodded agreeably. At the cockpit door, he said to Lila, “Stewardish, do you think you can get me a club soda or a toffee. A coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the preflight checklist and disappeared behind the cockpit door, repeating again, “I'll go to Ohio.…”

Mr. P. glanced to the vision of Bhakti standing like a spear-carrier in an Italian opera. Nothing seemed to have fazed him. The youngsters didn't seem fazed either. The children had spread themselves around the interior of the cabin. They lounged around like spoiled brats, staring contemptuously.

Mr. P. dismissed the sullen eyes.

“The spook scientist doesn't say much, does he?” When none of the kids responded, he shrugged. “Well, let's see about getting some jet fuel. If I can make a break in the weather, we can take off. Maybe get to Hillsboro by this time tomorrow morning. Or by tomorrow afternoon…”

Was he really going to have to pull on his galoshes and oversee the whole thing by himself? He went to the cabin hatch to check on those not-so-special locator bums. If they wanted a ride to Ohio, they were going to have to do something to make it happen.

Fuel first; plow later.

What he found dismayed him. The trooper dudes were playing some sort of stupid game, making the officer of the outfit run around the plane with his pants around his ankles. As he hobbled along in his u-trou, they paddled him playfully with bright pink flight-control wands. Their bout of hysterical blindness seemed to have left the men slightly demented. Mr. P. watched them for a few moments, barely controlling his temper. He was having trouble getting hold of their minds.

“Gentlemen,” he began. “TSA peoples! Can I have your attention?”

Then something else caught Mr. P.'s eye—

Two rabbits, right out of that dumb Beatrix Potter mural, sat at the entrance of the hangar. They stared right at Piper as though defying him to come and get them. Then one of the bunnies thumped his big hind leg, and they both vanished into the weather. Mr. P. stared at that spot by the hangar entrance for some moments after the rabbits disappeared.

Swear to God, one of them flipped him the bird.

 

38

Night of the Living Dread

A shaft of late-afternoon sun broke through the clouds across the hospital grounds. From the porch of the gabled house you could see three figures standing under the maple tree. Behind them the graveyard and numbered gravestones stood out like crooked teeth; then the clouds closed, flurries caught the wind, and the gray sky returned.

The strangers wore overcoats over bathrobes, unlaced boots over long johns or jammies: unkempt strays. The ravenous middle-aged staffer in the examination room came to mind. Cheryl glanced wordlessly at Beatrice, sharing the same thought:
What's for dinner? People, the other white meat.
Since anybody left alive, sane or mad, must also be immune to the wandering sickness, it was almost logical—eat the living, and be immune. Cargo-cult thinking.

You could tell Mr. Washington felt the patients were still his responsibility, that they got fed and put to bed, that none of them hurt themselves or anyone else.

“Maybe they're lost; maybe they don't know enough to come in.” Mr. Washington pointed across the expanse of snowy leaves. “That's Mrs. Hampshire. She's not violent; she's just sad. And there's Mr. Simmons. He drew a picture of me in Art Therapy. Used up all the brown crayons in the Crayola box making it.
You don't know they're bad.
”

Eleanor restrained him for a moment, a hand on his arm, and clamped her daughter's urn to her chest. “No, Mr. Washington, don't go out there, please.”

Mr. Washington looked affectionately at her.

“It's getting cold out here, Miss Eleanor. Take your Janet's ashes inside where it's warm.” He gently pried her hand away. “I'll be all right.”

Nobody thought so. The two other men especially.

“C'mon, Mr. Washington,” Billy said. “The ladies had some trouble before with that woman in the infirmary. We don't want the same thing now.” Then Guy, “Let's sort it out tomorrow, in the daylight. We'll find these people's proper places. All right?”

Mr. Washington ignored them. He stepped off the porch and unlatched the door to his car, and picked the Jesus statue off the dash. Touched it for a moment, and then put it in his pants pocket. The whole group seemed paralyzed. Lauren came to Guy's side and nudged him in the ribs. “Do something!”

“Do what?” Guy asked her. “Maybe he's
right.
We don't know these people.”

“He's
not
right,” Lauren hissed.

Standing off by themselves, Beatrice and Cheryl were as troubled as the others. The two women naturally gravitated to each other; close enough to touch, but somehow not daring to commit that simple act. If the two women suddenly flew into each other's arms, nobody would have thought twice about it, but still Cheryl and Bea couldn't. So they watched the good Mr. Washington walk across the snowy lawn not being able to comfort each other, or even stop him. They just stood there.

Mr. Washington approached his patients, and they seemed to shiver in expectation like delighted animals. When the gentle man was within arm's length the three strangers cautiously reached for him as a single creature, petting him as if touching something sacred. But in a few moments the adoration changed to harder stroking, and then pulling. Then clawing and tearing. The orderly's head disappeared under their hands, his voice rising to a choking shriek—

“Help him!” Eleanor screamed.

Everyone snapped out of their trance. Beatrice took off at a run, humping along on her gimp leg. Cheryl went after her; both women with guns drawn. The men followed. A few yards from the porch, the large woman's leg brace gave out. She crumpled, and Cheryl rushed to her side. Now it was okay to touch. Mr. Washington had vanished from under the maple tree, the graveyard empty. No watchers either. The men stopped in their tracks. Snow began to blow sideways across the lawn … and a silent shock settled over the group.

“Don't look,” Lauren told young Alice. They stood at the open door. But the young girl pushed Lauren's hand from her face and clutched her Horse Friends diary to her chest. She wanted to look.

*   *   *

Dinner became a silent wake.

Lauren and Eleanor hovered over young Alice, insisting she put down the diary for a minute, making sure she ate. If not for the laconic silence, no one might have even heard or noticed the moving camera. But as cameras hung everywhere, the one in the parlor wasn't worth a second glance. Except when the camera began to move, everyone heard it; a long
whirr
as the camera mount panned the room, corner to corner, then back again. The electronic eye methodically stared at each of them in turn. Young Alice put down knife and fork, speaking into the terrible silence.

“They're watching us,” she said out loud.

Guy and Lauren sat upright in their seats; this may have been the first time the Girl-by-the-Stairs had spoken.
They're watching us.…
The strangers from the maple tree sitting in the warm security office looking at their next meal. Guy found a dish towel and threw it over the video camera, covering the lens. “We'll do something about you tomorrow,” he muttered. And the camera whirred back as if to mock him.